By a show of hands, all eight candidates to run the Democratic National Committee (DNC) agreed that Kamala Harris lost the presidential election because of "racism" and "misogyny."
The astonishing response shows that Democrats have yet to accept the rebuke of voters as they elect a new chair, Ken Martin, to guide them out of their post-election depression.
Democrats appeared to have learned nothing during the weekend leadership vote and a preceding forum hosted by MSNBC, which offered up a display of stubborn groupthink.
In one shocking moment, MSNBC's Jonathan Capehart asked candidates if "racism" and "misogyny" contributed to Harris' defeat, prompting all eight candidates to raise their hands in assent, including Martin, a white man, who later won the leadership vote days later.
Capehart was satisfied with the candidates' uniform answer, responding, "That’s good, you all pass" as chuckles could be heard from the crowd.
Thank you to @MSNBC's Jonathan Capehart, the gay weekend host whose "marriage" was performed by Eric Holder, for doubling down on racism and misogyny as the reason @KamalaHarris lost.
Please continue. pic.twitter.com/7niw27yzSY
— Kyle Seraphin (@KyleSeraphin) January 31, 2025
The moment was just one example of the party's slowness to adapt following a brutal election. Former DNC chair Jaime Harrison began the leadership vote with a verbose prologue concerning gender representation that mentioned "non-binary" individuals.
Meanwhile, Harrison suggested in an interview that Democrats should have stuck with Joe Biden, whose cognitive decline convinced senior Democrats like Nancy Pelosi (D-Ca.) and Chuck Schumer (D-Ny.) that he had no chance of winning re-election.
Harrison blamed Harris' failure on misogyny and the short window she had to campaign, rather than her flaws as a candidate.
"Had she had more runway, it would have been probably easier for her and for the campaign," Harrison said. "We were building a race for Joe Biden."
"'The gap in which she lost wasn’t huge, but when you add up little pockets where it’s, some people because of Gaza, some people because of the economy, some people because she was a woman," he added.
While Democrats go looking to pin their misfortune on the supposedly close-minded attitudes of Americans, it is the Democrats who are unwilling to move beyond their narrow thinking, and it's only going to hurt them in the future - especially if Kamala runs again in 2028, as many expect.
The truth is that Harris was a weak candidate. Her public appearances were awkward and incoherent, and she was never able to convincingly break with the unpopular Biden administration and its policies on the border and the economy. In her inept closing pitch to the country, she focused on painting Donald Trump as a would-be dictator instead of targeting voters' everyday worries about inflation.
On another, more basic level, the Democratic party has a branding issue. Voters have written them off as woke, toxic, and out of touch - and Democrats have yet to seriously challenge those perceptions.
Unless something changes, Democrats will continue to struggle against a resurgent Trump, who is enjoying more popularity than ever with his appealing agenda of "common sense."
